Issue No 100 | 29 June 2001 | |
UnionsTime For Second Gear
The trends are in the right direction but unions are still drinking small beer in the IT world and need to allocate more resources to communications generally, argues Noel Hester.
When I started working with unions and the Internet in 1996 a survey of unions would probably have revealed that few used email, that they had next to no web presence and their general use of information technology was primitive. When I talked to union leaders about the Internet and its future importance I usually got sceptical looks like I was Brother From Another Planet. Measured against this history we've come a long way in five years and we have many successes to celebrate. Workers Online is a phenomenon and one for Australian unions to be proud of. To be still alive and kicking let alone growing and maturing at 100 issues is a great feat that deserves accolades. Over the years, how many attempts at establishing a progressive newspaper or magazine have died in the water within weeks or a few months as the seed capital dried up and activists walked away exhausted and demoralised? Workers Online proves what unions can do with a little bit of money, a can-do person driving the project, a helping hand from savvy activists, and a leadership willing to take a punt, all combined with the potential of new technologies. Elsewhere there is progress too. At the national level the ACTU has made a serious commitment to placing communications - including the use of online tools - as a central plank of its strategies. Several Labour Councils have moved towards a significant presence on the web. Many individual unions now have impressive, sophisticated, well-maintained sites. You can argue that the trends are in the right direction, although overall, the use of the web and email by unions is uneven and adhoc. It's only a tool But to look at the Internet as something that is somehow separate from the mainstream of union activity and its goals, and to measure our progress accordingly, is to miss the point. A groovy looking website with nothing to say or to do is a fat lot of use. The Internet is merely a tool to communicate and to organise and if we're rigorous in analysing how we are progressing in that context we still have a long way to go. Too few unions give communications - in any form - the importance it deserves, in terms of resources allocated or as part of organisational strategy. There are unions of a significant size without a journal, a website or a dedicated media officer. It's not hard to work out why with most unions confronted with dwindling membership and resources. When you have to pinch pennies, areas like the journal or training are easy looking targets. But it is these areas that deserve more investment, not less, in a time of crisis as they provide leverage on our resources and activities. For many members the journal or the website is the only contact they will have with the union. As Workers Online has proved, investment in the technology and having a smart operator at the wheel can have an impact that dwarfs traditional union ways of working. Having worked as a media officer for several unions I've seen how such cost cutting or the failure to invest can actually cost unions a fortune. If a national office cuts its journal and pushes the responsibility for communications on to the branches, the loss of scale of production balloons the costs out astronomically. I know of one federal union which produces an excellent 20-page full-colour journal with professional photography and journalism at less than 50 cents per unit. I know of another example where the national union cut its national journal and a six page newsletter put out by a division of one its branches cost $3.50 per unit. That sort of cost cutting can be bad economics when put under scrutiny. Similarly when talking to unions about building a website I was always confronted with the refrain that, great though it would be, the union just couldn't afford it. At the same time I knew of a small branch that was picking up 8-10 new members per month through its website. That's 100 odd new members per year - say $30,000 in dues annually. The failure to invest was actually costing those unions dearly. For Communicating Substitute Campaigning Slowly but surely unions are realising that they need to change if we are going to survive and that renewed grassroots activism is the key to our future strength and relevance. It involves serious cultural change and part of doing things differently should be using technology for the times in an innovative way. For all the successes we have had like Workers Online the truth is it's still all small beer in the IT world and we have some way to go to fulfill the potential of the (now not so) new technologies. We need to go up a gear. Unions are doing OK in using the medium for publishing but the Internet's real value for us is its 'connectivity' - its effectiveness in networking. For all the hype about the Internet the 'killer app' is, and always has been, email. While you can find some excellent examples of union campaigning using email we are still some way off using it effectively as a principal organising tool. Our challenge is to keep abreast of where the technologies are going - no easy matter -and integrate the online tools: websites, email, and whatever the industry comes up with in e-commerce, databases and WAP communication - with effective campaigning and organising strategies. Realistically we need to work more effectively together to harness the potential and share the costs. IT requires an investment that most unions would baulk at despite the leverage and long term savings it makes. We need to share our resources and pool our strengths more consistently and effectively. We're in the fight of our lives and to fight back we must fight smart. The web, email, communications and organising are all part of an infrastructure we need to harness and use in a progressive way to turn it around. Noel Hester is web coordinator for the ACTU
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Interview: Baptism of Fire It�s been a rugged few weeks for Labor Council�s new honcho. But John Robertson accepts it comes with the territory. Politics: Seven Days that Shook Our World Chris Christolodulou surveys the wreckage from a week when the political and industrial wings of the labour movement collided. History: History Sometimes Repeat This is not the first Labor government to attack workers compensation entitlements. Some believe the Unsworth Government�s 1987 reforms were the beginning of the end for that administration. Technology: Unions Online: Where To Now? Social Change Online's Mark McGrath goes looking for what's on the virtual horizon for the union movement. Media: The Printed Word Revisited Rowan Cahill looks at the resurgence of the workers press and the lessons for unions in better communicating with their members. Unions: Time For Second Gear The trends are in the right direction but unions are still drinking small beer in the IT world and need to allocate more resources to communications generally, argues Noel Hester. Satire: Texan Governor Faces Execution The governor of Texas has been sentenced to death row after a jury found him guilty of killing hundreds of people. Review: The Insider Neale Towart looks at a literary anti-hero who brings the factional machinations and double-deals of the ALP machine out of the back rooms and into the light.
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